Jiu Ji-Tae
Jiu Ji-Tae is a freshman student at Nam-il High. He is the protagonist of the webcomic "Fight Class 3". Appearance Jiu Ji-Tae is of average build and has medium length brown hair, styled in waves across his forehead. Prior to meeting Maria Dacascos, he wore square spectacles, but after having them broken he replaced them with contact lenses. He has a single distinctive scar on his forehead, usually covered by his hair; he recieved this scar at the hands of Jiu Dae-Gak. History Seven years prior to the events of the series, Ji-Tae and his sister Ji-Hyun were attending their mother's wake when they were attacked by their father, Jiu Dae-Gak, who overpowered Ji-Tae and kidnapped Ji-Hyun. Plot At the beginning of the series, Jiu Ji-Tae is a freshman at Nam-il High, who is close friends with Na Ok-Dong and Lee Ji-Eun. He gets involved in a disagreement with Kim Dong-Won, who believes Ji-Tae is in a romantic relationship with Lee Ji-Eun, who Dong-Won is infatuated with. When Ji-Tae is attacked, he manages to avoid Dong-Won's punches until their fight is interrupted by Maria Dacascos. After the fight, Ji-Tae leaves his friends to put up posters with pictures of Ji-Hyun and Dae-Gak on them in an attempt to try and find Ji-Hyun. However, he is attacked by Maria, who was intrigued by his dodging ability and wished to test it. In their fight Later, intrigued by his dodging ability, Maria attacks Ji-Tae, and is impressed by his ability to evade her kicks and slip out of her submission with his double-jointed flexibility. Noticing the details on the poster and correctly identifying Ji-Tae as the son of Dae-Gak, Maria asks him to come to the fight classes, offering to turn him into the strongest Jiujutiero. Ji-Tae initially turns Maria down and leaves after requesting she replace his glasses, broken in the confrontation. The next day, however, she turns up at his classroom bearing contacts to replace his glasses, telling him that glasses will be impractical if he joins the fight classes. After confronting Maria on the roof, Ji-Tae reiterates his refusal to join the fight classes, but when Maria brings up the possibility that joining the fight classes could help him find his sister, he reluctantly accepts her offer to prepare him for the admission test, a fight against Dong-Won. After doing some research on Jiu-Jutsu, Ji-Tae is impressed with its reputation of a master of it being able to defeat a physically superior opponent. On the way home from school, he is attacked by a masked assailant who breaks his ankle; after speaking with Maria, she reveals that this eliminates her initial plan, for him to use his dodging skills to force a decision against Dong-Won. On the rooftop of the school they run into Dong-Won accompanied by Yang Gi-Hoon, who Ji-Tae identifies as the masked assailant because of his eyes and voice. The confrontation ends without violence, but not before Maria warns both Dong-Won and Gi-Hoon and identifies Gi-Hoon as a member of Fight Class 3. After the confrontation on the rooftop Ok-Dong explains to Ji-Tae about how the fight classes are structured, how the Fight Classes 1 and 2 are a fast-track course into Road FC, and about the rumours that the isolated Fight Class 3, made up of top students from the other two fight classes, is a hidden venue for underground Vale Tudo (anything goes) matches. Ji-Tae begins his gruelling training with Maria, who teaches him how to use the cross guard as well as how to check kicks and who bouys his flagging confidence by reminding him how this is all to help his sister. However, Ok-Dong and Ji-Eun turn up for a visit and mistake a failed takedown attempt from Ji-Tae on Maria as a romantic interaction, initially infuriating Ji-Eun. After learning how to sprawl to prevent takedowns, Ji-Tae and Ji-Eun return home, where Ji-Eun gives him some painkillers. The next day, Ji-Tae arrives to the gym early, and with Maria not present begins working on his punches. He runs into Shim Ha-Min, who teaches him how to throw a punch properly before leaving. When Maria arrives, she begins to instruct Ji-Tae on how to counter Dong-Won's dirty boxing with a flying armbar; unbeknownst to them, Dong-Won is currently conducting reconnaissance on them and discovers their strategy. The next day is the day of the admission test. Ok-Dong and Ji-Eun are not permitted to accompany Ji-Tae, who enters with only Maria. His initial confidence is demolished by Dong-Won's bloodthirsty glare and he begins panicking. Maria notices this and takes him into a side room to give him a pep talk, affirming that she believes his chances of victory are absolute and again reminding him of his motivation for fighting. Dong-Won begins the fight with a vicious flurry of punches, which Ji-Tae avoids or guards, a low kick, which he checks, and a takedown, which he defends against with a sprawl. This carries him past the first round without a defeat. In the second round Dong-Won again throws a series of punches, and initiates a clinch. Ji-Tae attempts to respond to this with a flying armbar but Dong-Won was prepared for it and pins his foot, following it up with a punch to the head. The punch knocks Ji-Tae to the floor. Dong-Won tries to follow up with an illegal soccer kick to the head but is interrupted by his coach. Ji-Tae nearly goes unconcious from the punch but forces himself back up after a memory of his sister and continues fighting, managing to land a punch on Dong-Won. However, he is overpowered and knocked to the floor. Dong-Won again tries to follow up his success with an illegal strike, this time a stomp to a downed opponent, but Ji-Tae responds with his own illegal move, a heel-hook that traps Dong-Won's leg and brings him down. As Dong-Won is unable to continue, the match is ruled as a defeat for Ji-Tae by disqualification. The next day, a despondent Ji-Tae goes in search of Maria to try and get some answers about her knowledge of Dae-Gak, but happens upon her torturing Dong-Won in the school gym, extracting a confession that he knew about the armbar in advance. Ji-Tae interrupts her assault, and after a heated discussion finally convinces her to spare Dong-Won by threatening to refuse to help her at all if she does not. After Dong-Won leaves the gym, Maria reveals to Ji-Tae some details; she also lost her family to Dae-Gak, and wishes to take revenge. The only way to even meet him, however, is to join Fight Class 3. Maria also asks Ji-Tae if Dae-Gak is really his father, because she wishes to kill Dae-Gak for her revenge. Ji-Tae cannot answer. Later on, Dong-Won attempts to take responsibility for his cheating so Ji-Tae can join Fight Class 1, but is refused, as Maria has already negotiated for Ji-Tae to join by offering her sponsorship money in exchange. He meets with the class president of Fight Class 1, Eun-Sol, who drills him through a series of physical tests to establish his aptitude. She also warns him that his association with Maria may make him a target; Maria has defeated the entire class brutally during testing, and as a result they all either idolise her or resent her, making Ji-Tae who has a close relationship with her a target of both. After returning to his house and quitting his part time job working for Ji-Eun's grandfather, since he now has support from the school to train full-time, Ji-Tae runs into Maria, who is waiting at his house. She reveals to him that since her support has been withdrawn, including her accommodation, she will need to live at his house from now on. Ji-Tae struggles at training on his first day, and is picked on by the people who resent Maria mentioned by Eun-Sol. He nearly becomes the centre of a fight when one asks him if he "did it" with Maria, and Ha-Min nearly intervenes in a rage. However, the conflict is averted by Gi Ba-Ram and bubblegum girl. Ranking matches are announced for the entire class, and Ji-Tae's opponent in the preliminaries is Kwon Tae-Young, a practicioner of Kyokushin full-contact Karate. She and Ba-Ram go to Ji-Tae's desk to talk to him about the upcoming match. Ji-Tae reveals his style is jiu-jutsu, while Tae-Young mentions her weakness - that she is too aggressive. The match between Ji-Tae and Tae-Young begins with her letting loose with a flurry of blows. Ji-Tae initially dodges them but is forced to eventually outright flee. After riding out the first round by dodging, Ji-Tae manages to surprise Tae-Young by moving forward suddenly but does not exploit this opportunity. He then attempts to throw a punch, but it is ineffective and Tae-Young responds with an uppercut he is barely able to block. Tae-Young appears to slow down after the second round ends, and Ji-Tae attempts to exploit this with a flying armbar, but she blocks it and this only makes her get serious. She unleashes a furious assualt that Ji-Tae can barely dodge and knocks him unconcious with a body-shot that cracks his ribs. Ji-Tae loses his next two rounds because of the damage he took in that fight and is ranked as a D. Abilities Ji-Tae begins the series completely devoid of any skill or fighting experience, especially in comparison to members of Nam-il High's fight classes. However, he does have a strong aptitude for picking up new techniques quickly, learning the difficult flying armbar technique after only twp days, learning the heel-hook after only seeing an internet video of it being performed, and immediately achieving near-perfect form on a punch after only a basic word of advice from Shim Ha-Min. Ji-Tae's strongest asset however is his body. While he is not as physically fit as the average member of the fight classes, his ability to dodge and double-jointedness that allows him to slip out of submissions are traits that impressed even Maria immediately upon seeing them in action. Trivia